


Black Hole Sun

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dr Nyarlathotep, Eldritch Doctor (Doctor Who), Fluff, Horror, Kissing, Memory Alteration, Mind Manipulation, Other, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, little bit of eldritch Master too, then back to, with a brief foray into
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26895604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: The Doctor and the Master celebrate an anniversary, which predictably goes a little awry. It's fine, though. None of the humans remember a thing.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Black Hole Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffysfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/gifts).



> I blame Fluffy. This was meant to be a fun, darker take on the implications of the Doctor's eldritch powers in his Dimensional Horror Love Stories series, but then somehow it turned into like,, 80% pure fluff. Don't be fooled, though, this does briefly get very dark

Sunships are designed to withstand the heat and gravity of massive stars, designed to bring passengers as close to the burning gasses as they can safely go. They're used for scientific expeditions, hypersecure banks, and, eventually, tourism. The  _ Delphi _ is one such ship; the interstellar equivalent of a tropical cruise, if cruises tended to circle hurricanes. In other words, it's exactly the sort of place the Doctor would enthusiastically drag the Master to on a date.

"I've got us both VIP tickets for the voyage," she explains as she sets the TARDIS soaring through the Time Vortex. Her tentacles stretch out to reach the switches her traditional limbs can't. "It's going to be one day there, three days circling the sun, and then another day back. We can let Angie off in another dimension, park the TARDIS at the shuttle, and just enjoy some peace and quiet."

The Master looks dubious. "You don't like peace and quiet. You like chaos, and loud noises, and sudden malfunctions in important parts of vital systems."

"Well, maybe I want a break from all that," the Doctor protests. "Five days, it's not that long."

Again, he raises his eyebrows. Though his eyes don't do the same thing hers do, slipping into inky darkness at strong emotions, they shimmer with unspoken doubts. Literally. It's a bit like glitter, and unfairly attractive.

"Fine, okay, I wanted to do something nice for our anniversary," she admits.

Stepping away from the console, she coils a tentacle lazily around his wrist. His skin is always a bit warmer than that of her extra limbs, and it's a bit like hugging a hot water bottle; cozy, comforting, and just the right side of heat. Absently, he winds the tendril around his fingers.

"Which one, love? You've got to be more specific."

"When we first-" She cuts off as she realizes something, tilting her head. "You don't know which one it is, do you?"

A tiny little flash of panic flits across his mind, and the Doctor grins. He's forgotten, for all that he teases her about never remembering his birthday or other important dates. Well, now she  _ has _ to make the most of this.

The Master wraps his arms around her waist and settles his head on her shoulder, careful not to press against the writhing mass between her shoulderblades. "Theta, my dearest eldritch horror, please tell me which anniversary this is."

"You're clever, I'm sure you can figure it out." With one tentacle, she reaches out to pull down the dematerialization lever; she doesn't want to move him, after all.

Though she can't  _ see _ him, she can tell that he's pouting just by the way the air shifts. Lips press softly against the back of her neck, and she curls a tentacle around his waist in a hug. She's still not going to tell him, but she isn't going to complain about his affection.

The TARDIS settles with a jolt that, if not for the tentacle, would likely have dislodged the Master. Slipping out of his arms, the Doctor heads for the stairs.

"We need to pack!" she calls over her shoulder. "Come on!"

The shuttle to the  _ Delphi _ is small and crowded with people, luggage, and uncomfortable bench seats. Which, the Doctor supposes, is only natural, given that it's the last one - and they'd nearly missed it.

The security systems had malfunctioned upon trying to scan both her and the Master, causing some very annoying delays and a small mental breakdown for the technician who tried to fix them. Built for humans, the equipment just wasn't capable of handling, well… whatever they are. Not Time Lords, really, not anymore, but not truly anything else. In the end, though, they made it through in the nick of time to catch the shuttle, squeezing their way through the doors and into the cramped space.

The Doctor tries to keep her appendages away from everyone else, though there isn't anywhere else to put them. She doesn't want to be touching random humans more than necessary, and apparently - according to the Master - it's quite startling to be touched by something you can't see or feel in a comprehensible manner. At least he doesn't have to worry about it, she thinks bitterly.  _ His _ extra limbs are small enough to tuck away easily, while hers have a wingspan more than twice as broad as she is tall.

One of the Master's less tangible hands settles on her arm, and she looks at him quizzically.

"Careful with your eyes, love," he whispers.

They must be doing that thing again, where they lose their sclera into the void and shift colors. Normally, that's not a problem, but surrounded by humans it might be a little bit noticeable, and  _ that _ could be a problem. The Doctor tries to force them into settling on one shade. Her original two eyes were hazel, weren't they, before all of this? She doesn't quite remember.

The rest of the shuttle flight went by in relative peace, save for a brief incident when the Doctor accidentally flickered out of the right set of dimensions out of sheer boredom. She pulled herself back before anyone could have noticed anything too incriminating, but after that, the Master kept one solid hand twined with hers just in case.

As the shuttle docks, she takes advantage of that to pull him along after her, eager to  _ move _ and get away from the crowds as quickly as she can. She nearly forgets to grab their luggage - if the single small, dimensionally transcendant suitcase really counts as 'luggage' - in her haste to see the  _ Delphi _ itself.

The sunship doesn't disappoint. The warm gold-colored halls lead to all sorts of exciting locations; a mall, a huge water park, a library, a zoo, and most importantly, several viewing rooms for the sun that the ship will soon be orbiting.

"We should explore!" the Doctor suggests, knowing that she's flickering with delight and not really caring. "Ooh, they have a frozen yogurt shop. I love frozen yogurt! Do you think they have a custard cream flavor?"

"I haven't the faintest clue," the Master replies. "But let's find our room first, Thete."

Her first inclination is to sigh dramatically about the delay, but he has a fair point. She digs through the pockets of her trousers in search of their tickets, so that she can actually remember the room number. It takes a moment, digging a few extra limbs into the jumble to help, but she finally finds the slip of paper.

"Hah! Room 103, fourth floor," she reads. "Let's go!"

Their room continues the warm-hued color scheme of the rest of the ship, with cozy fake-wood walls and matching furniture. Not that the Doctor pays much attention, beyond dropping their suitcase on the plush carpet.

And then she's off again, the Master laughing fondly and following her back out into the halls. She pauses when they reach an intersection with a holographic map, looking through it with one goal in mind.

"Is frozen yogurt under restaurants, or… oh, there it is! Third floor, right next to the antigravity chamber and the water park."

"Still on that, then?" the Master asks.

"'Course I am, frozen yogurt's brilliant." When she smiles at him, she can feel a few extra teeth slip into visibility, but it's not as if he minds.

She loves that about him, she thinks, kissing him quickly just because she can. Not once has he complained about her less  _ normal _ behaviors or abilities, not even when he began exhibiting them himself. It's wonderful, and he's wonderful, and she loves him so much her hearts could burst.

Not letting herself get distracted by kissing him, she pulls back and heads for the elevators. Sure, teleporting there would be quicker, especially with how tall the third floor is, but she might miss out on something exciting along the way if she just  _ blip _ s over. And it gives her another excuse to kiss the Master in the stairwell.

Much to the Doctor's disappointment, the frozen yogurt shop does not have a custard cream flavor. Birthday cake is an inferior substitute, but she covers it in enough of those fun little bubbles of fruit juice to not really notice. The Master gets cinnamon, which she tries one bite of and quickly decides is not for her this time around.

"It's just so… bright," she complains, wrinkling her nose as they explore the rest of the third floor. "It tastes like staring into the sun."

He raises his eyebrows. "You mean the very thing you've brought us here to do?"

There's just a hint of a smirk on his lips that tells her he's teasing. The Doctor rolls her eyes and thwacks him gently on the arm with one tentacle.

"You know what I mean."

Ephemeral hands linked so that their physical ones can hold their frozen yogurt, they meander around the third floor. Eventually, they end up in a sprawling garden, brightly flowering plants blooming all around them. The heavy foliage creates a false sense of privacy, the illusion that they're all alone in this small bubble of nature. Perhaps, just a little, the Doctor is encouraging people to stay away and keep it that way; just a hint of  _ wrongness _ in the air to nudge at the humans' brains.

"You know, if you remembered what anniversary this is, I would probably be saying something sweet about it right now," she points out, sitting down on the springy grass.

The Master joins her on the ground, leaning his shoulder against hers. "Or you could remind me yourself, dear."

She tilts her head as if considering the prospect, though both of them already know her answer. "Nah."

"Not even if I apologize  _ very _ sincerely for forgetting?" he asks. One of his hands - one of the real two, even - rests on her thigh, and he's pressed himself slightly closer to her.

"Nope," she says, popping the 'p' and grinning. Definitely extra teeth that time, but she can't help it; something about bantering with him brings them out. "You'll just have to figure it out on your own, Kosch."

"You, love, are a bastard," the Master informs her, with the same adoring tone as when he says he loves her.

That pulls a laugh from her, and she pulls him in with a tentacle for a kiss. Only to immediately stop, making a face of disgust and sticking her tongue out like that will do anything about the flavor assaulting it.

Instantly, the Master goes from somewhat seductive to concerned. "What's wrong?"

She glares at him, as though personally wounded by his taste in frozen dairy products. "You still taste like cinnamon."

She should have known better than to think everything would be peaceful for more than a day. One day of exploring the sunship, one day of kissing the Master despite the cinnamon lingering on his breath, one day of relaxation and happiness - that was all she was allowed to have before  _ something _ went wrong.

Really, she shouldn't have suggested that they split up in the morning. But the Master had said he wanted to get her something to surprise her with, and she had been so confident that this, at least, would be safe. So she told him to meet her at the frozen yogurt place in a few hours, and left him with one last kiss before parting ways.

There was a tour of the engines that she had wanted to do, so she headed down to the first floor and did her best to keep herself as human-looking as possible. Tentacles tucked out of dimensions humans could perceive, eyes a steady brown, a normal quantity and sharpness of teeth, no flickering even when she got excited by the marvellous ingenuity of human engineering. It wasn't quite as fun without the Master, but it was still a good way to waste time until he finished whatever errand he was running.

And then something, as it always did, went wrong. With no warning, the doors automatically slammed shut to trap the tour group inside the balcony above the engine room. The guide - Ben, as he'd introduced himself - had explained, rather reluctantly, that the ship was having trouble resisting the gravitational pull of the sun, and that surely everything would be taken care of soon, and they would be allowed to leave.

That had been nearly half an hour ago, and nothing since has changed since except for the steadily increasing levels of panic. The Doctor can taste it, sour and unpleasant in the back of her throat like bile. And people keep  _ moving, _ jostling against her tentacles even when she wraps them around herself to keep them out of the way, too close and too much.

A part of her wants to just leave, just teleport out and deal with the problem from the outside, but if she's right about the engines being the source of this malfunction, then she's of more use here than anywhere else. If only she could convince Ben of that.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you can't just- just mess around with the engines!" the man insists. "I don't care what kind of doctor you are, the engines are perfectly fine. If you will  _ please _ just wait with everyone else until this problem has been dealt with, I feel that would be best for everyone."

"Except it won't be, because everyone will be dead if I don't fix the engines, since they aren't working!" she snaps. "When did you last hear them making any sort of sound?"

It's been ten minutes and forty-seven seconds since the engines stopped, and seven of those minutes have been spent arguing with Ben, as he refuses to get out of the way of the stairs, despite her insistence. 

He frowns. "I understand that you're upset, miss, but there is no such issue. I'm sure that the engines are functioning exactly as they ought to be."

Her tentacles thrash with annoyance - anger, really - and she can feel her control slipping a little. Teeth sharpening and lengthening, eyes probably darkening, and it would be so easy to just  _ make _ him move. No, no, not doing that, he hasn't done anything actually wrong. Just doing his job. Maybe everything will be fine.

The ship rumbles, quaking from side to side hard enough to make the Doctor stumble slightly. Something is definitely wrong.

From the speaker in one corner issues a piercing beep, followed by a message. "Attention! The  _ Delphi _ sunship is experiencing some temporary technical difficulties. Please remain calm."

A fresh wave of panic floods the room, and people swarm toward Ben to ask frantic questions. More than a few bump against the Doctor, the unwanted contact and sudden noise setting her even further on edge.

"What does it mean, technical difficulties?" "Are we going to die?" "Will we end up in the sun?" "What's happening?"

The Doctor knows the answers to those - 'the engines aren't working', 'possibly, but hopefully not', 'yes, if I don't fix it quickly', and 'nothing good'. But panicking humans look to authority, and Ben is the closest they have.

He does his best to reply. "Everything will be perfectly fine. I'm sure the crew knows what they're doing, and are working to fix the issue as we speak."

Another high-pitched beep cuts off further interrogation. "Attention! The  _ Delphi _ sunship engines are malfunctioning. Primary power will be lost in five, four, three, two, one."

On cue, the lights flicker off. The Doctor can see just fine, but several humans yelp at the sudden darkness.

"Auxiliary power will come on momentarily."

A dim blue light fills the room, casting heavy shadows across the silent engines below. This time, no one screams.

Slowly, careful not to bump into anyone, the Doctor moves closer to Ben.

"If you just let me through, I can fix this," she says quietly. "I know what I'm doing."

He startles, jumping slightly and whirling to face her. "No!" he whispers. "I can't do that, ma'am. Just stay with everyone else until this is fixed."

With a frustrated noise, the Doctor digs around for her sonic paper. Credentials of some sort might be enough to get him to listen. Though she pulls out easily four handfuls of stuff from her pockets, she doesn't find what she's looking for. It must have ended up with the Master, or in their suitcase, or anywhere but where she actually needs it. Of course.

Again, annoyance makes her Gallifreyan form waver, just a little bit. Not little enough, apparently, because Ben's eyes go wide with horror and he screams.

"What- you- your-" He can't seem to find words for the fear she can taste rolling off him, sickly sweet like rotting fruit.

His scream made the panic of the other humans skyrocket, and now the whole room is alight with shouting and the air is thick with it and she needs them all to just  **_shut up and listen._ **

And they do. In an instant, silence falls, and even though the fear-taste increases it's still enough of an improvement that she can think properly, now. It's a small force of will to keep them all quiet; barely anything, compared to the effort of keeping herself mostly Gallifreyan-shaped when all she wants to do is let her form collapse like a puppet with cut strings and be  _ herself. _ But that might cause irreparable damage to the humans, and even if she's annoyed with them that's taking it a bit far.

"Now, I'm going to fix everything, and you lot are going to stay here," she announces, in what she thinks is a reassuring tone. "Try to stay quiet, okay?"

She lets go her metaphorical death grip on their vocal cords, and, just as she'd hoped, no one starts screaming again. Smiling, extra teeth and all, she very gently moves Ben out of the way of the door with a tentacle. He flinches as it brushes against him, and nearly falls over in his haste to get away from the touch.

Locked doors become so much less of an issue when one can just  _ make _ them unlock themselves, in the Doctor's experience. She heads down to the engines below, and begins searching for the source of the problem.

Ben's never been a fan of horror movies. They always creeped him out way too much; something about the specific kind of creeping, inevitable fear made his heart race and his skin itch. That has  _ nothing _ on the terror of whatever the everloving  _ hell _ that woman is.

She had been nice! She had asked good questions and smiled at the answers and sure, it was a bit odd that she was by herself, but some people's families aren't big on tours. Ben had actually sort of liked her.

And then the doors had shut, enclosing the entire group on the balcony, and she had gotten  _ strange. _ Insisting that she could fix a problem that didn't exist, her eyes going scary and dark and weird and yet Ben couldn't make himself look away.

The lights had gone out and she had snuck up on him, and he was willing to pass it all off as just tricks of the light and an eccentric personality until she  _ flickered. _ Her eyes spiralled infinitely inward and her skin wasn't real and horrible, branching limbs sprouted from her back and her teeth were bloody daggers and she made every buried, half-forgotten animal instinct in his brain scream at him to run but he  _ couldn't. _

He had screamed, and gibbered, and searched for words to describe what he just saw, but there weren't any, and suddenly he couldn't speak at all. And she had smiled with too many too sharp teeth, telling them all to stay put like a bunch of dogs while she moved him aside with a limb he couldn't see.

Now she's down in the engines doing who knows what, and Ben  _ knows _ he needs to stop her from messing things up worse, but he can't quite manage the courage to do it. His heart is still racing faster than it's ever gone, and his mind still feels a bit like it's melting, and what he really wants to do is curl up in a ball and cry until he can forget all of this. Some people are; he can hear the sobs.

One of the tourists, a burly man who had come with his two kids -  _ merciful gods, _ children had seen that terrifying creature in the skin of a woman - is the first to speak up.

"We need to stop that thing," he says, just loud enough to be heard. None of them can shout, even if they wanted to, not with the tightness still lingering around their throats. "I don't know how, but..."

"There's emergency flares." Ben coughs, then tries again. "In the first aid kit over there, there's emergency flares. Maybe we can stun her- it."

A murmur of agreement sweeps through the- the other victims. It's not a great plan, but it's the best they've got. Ben walks to the kit, legs shaky, and opens it, pulling out the three meagre flares. Why they're even in there, he doesn't know - holdover from old Earth traditions, probably. He's just grateful to have them.

In the end, it's him and two other people who go, the first man to speak and a young woman with a ferocity to the edges of her. Each of them holds a flare in their trembling hands as Ben pulls open the door.

Below them, those terrible limbs - tentacles? Wings? Something grotesquely in between? - spread out wide, is the woman who called herself a doctor. She's bent over one of the engines, sparks lighting the air around her as she does… something. Ben doesn't know what, but he's willing to bet it's only making the situation worse.

The three of them try to be quiet as they creep down the metal staircase, but Ben steps heavily halfway down the stairs and the noise rings out. He freezes, praying that she can't see them.

They aren't that lucky. Even in the dark and at a distance, he can see that her eyes are pools of oilslick black when she looks up at them.

"I told you to stay up there, didn't I?" she asks, her voice incongruously innocent-sounding, as if she's genuinely unsure. "'S not safe right now to be down here. Once these start back up, the heat's going to be something awful."

Ben makes a noise somewhere between a whimper and a squeak. A sudden light shines behind him, and he can only guess that one of the other people lit their flares. Moments later, the bright red glow flies across the room and nearly collides with the woman when she- well, there's no word for what she does because Ben doesn't see it. One second, the flare is heading straight for her chest, and the next it's about a meter to the left of her, bouncing uselessly off of a piece of machinery with a clang. She never moved.

"That's rude, I'm  _ trying _ to help," she snaps. "Get out of here, go on."

Ben wants to, but he's the farthest from the door and his legs don't seem to want to work right. He just shivers in place instead.

Somehow, the woman gets taller, her shadow in the blue emergency lights extending impossibly behind her. "I said,  **_get out._ ** "

It's like he's being puppeted by something that has never actually used a human body before. His feet do an abrupt about-face on the stairs, and the rest of his follows less as one singular motion and more because it  _ must. _ Jerkily, he marches up the stairs, following the other two and their equally robotic motions. Once he's back on the balcony level, he hears the door slam shut behind him and lock with a very final click.

"What happened?" someone demands.

Ben doesn't answer, just sinks to the floor the moment he has control over his own body and cries.

The engines whirr to life in a few minutes, and the primary lights come on not long after that. Seconds later, without going through the door, the woman reappears, her teeth showing in something like a smile.

"Hah! Knew I could fix it," she says cheerfully. Nobody dares move, frozen in fear. Her teeth disappear. "Oh, right. Sorry 'bout all that. Humans - you just never listen."

Someone sobs, and- somehow, her frowns are worse than those terrible smiles. They're just close enough to human sadness to make the darkness behind them all the more horrifying.

The crying cuts off abruptly under a forceful, unnatural feeling of calm. Ben's heart should still be racing, he should still be terrified - and on some level, he is - but all he can think is an oppressive blanket of  _ peace. _ It's horrible, this pressure against his mind.

"Should probably make sure you lot don't remember this," the woman mutters. "No idea what it would do to your brains. Right, let's see if I can…"

The presence  _ pushes _ at Ben's brain, no longer a suffocating blanket but a battering ram against his thoughts, breaking them into fracturing little pieces. His memories shatter under the assault, like glass smashed apart by a boulder. The feeling makes him want to throw up, but he can't even  _ breathe _ right now. Then he can feel it twist, making something in his mind squirm, and-

The Doctor sighs as she finishes wiping the humans' memories. It's always tedious, especially when there's a powerful emotion tied to the memory - like fear - and she has to be even more careful. She had expected a bit more trouble wiping Ben's memories, since he unfortunately got a proper glimpse of her, but his mind is so eager to forget that it's not too difficult to nudge it in the right direction. As far as the humans are concerned, they were locked in the balcony room for an hour or so, the engines miraculously came back on, and the Doctor was never there at all.

As soon as she steps through the door, she finds herself nose to nose with the Master. His eyes are the same inky black she knows hers slip into, and that is far too gorgeous to be fair.

"Theta," he breathes, and she doesn't care about the humans she can see behind him, she wants to hold him until her entire being feels like her hearts do when he says her name.

Wait. She can do that. Already coiling a few tentacles around him, she pulls them both just a little to the left of time. He shivers slightly in her arms - well, not really, but "in her tentacles" doesn't flow as neatly for her thought process - at the sensation of being outside of time, and wraps one arm around her waist, his other hand cupping her face.

"You worried me," he says softly. "Thought you said this trip was supposed to be relaxing, love."

"It is!" she protests. "Not my fault the engines broke down and we might've ended up in the sun."

"But you saved the day again." Smiling, he runs his thumb along her cheekbone, and she mirrors the motion with a tentacle. "As always."

"Well… there was a bit of a kerfuffle-" The Master snorts, and she glares. "Don't laugh, it's a good word - with the humans, but I dealt with it. All good now."

"Mm, and that was why I could feel you messing around in their minds?" he asks, just slightly teasing.

Even so, it brings her mood down. She doesn't like changing people's memories; it makes her feel _wrong._ Like she's taking advantage. "I had to. They saw a bit too much of this." She deliberately flares her wings and bares her teeth, making herself appear as terrifying as possible. Darkness coils around her like a cloak, and she can feel her grip on her more coherent form begin to loosen.

Predictably, the Master looks at her with pure adoration, edged with  _ want. _ "Well, they should count themselves lucky. If you wouldn't mind doing that again…"

The Doctor leans in to kiss him, because she loves him so much she can hardly stand it. She's careful to keep her teeth dull enough not to just shred his lips open; for as much as he enjoys her being rough, she doesn't want him bleeding everywhere while they're snogging.

After a very thorough kiss, she finally pulls away enough to let him catch his breath. She doesn't really need to these days, but the Master still does. He leans his forehead against hers, eyes fluttering closed.

"You're so good to me," she whispers. "So- so loving. So wonderful. Don't know what I'd do without you, Koschei, really. Probably go mad."

"Too late," he mutters. His eyes open, suddenly bright with excitement. "I figured out what anniversary this is, by the way."

She raises an eyebrow, dubious. "Really?"

"Oh, yes." A toothy grin, almost as sharp as hers, spreads across his face. "And, by the way, you are an absolute  _ sap _ for celebrating this. It's the day we first held hands. After you woke me up in the middle of the night with a nightmare and I comforted you until you fell back asleep. The next day you took my hand in the halls and I was already far too in love to point out how  _ scandalous _ you were being."

He called her a sap, and yet he says things like that so very sweetly. Pot, meet kettle.

"That was also the first time I knew I loved you." Even now, she can remember the exact moment. She had taken Koschei's hand, then he had curled his fingers around hers like he never wanted to let go, and suddenly the growing crush inside her hearts blossomed and she knew she didn't want to let go either. "Haven't stopped since."

"Can't believe it took you that long," he mutters.

"I was a bit slow," she admits. "Convinced myself that you wouldn't want me."

His eyes are huge and soft when he looks at her. "As if I could do anything else."

She kisses him again, hands at his waist and in his hair and everywhere that she can touch, just holding him and basking in his love. It's enough to push the last traces of the fear-taste from her mind, and she never wants to feel anything else but this. Anything but his arms around her and his lips on hers, the heat of his skin warming her more ethereal limbs and the sugary sweetness of him in her mind.

He's the one person she doesn't have to pretend around, and she appreciates that more than she could ever say. These days, other people are… tricky to deal with, but the Master stays with her no matter how many bizarre limbs she's got. After centuries,  _ millennia, _ spent chasing each other and never staying together anywhere close to long enough, it's a more than welcome change.

"Love you," she whispers, breaking their kiss just for that. She rarely says it first - emotions are still scary, still hard to put words to - but it's important that he remembers.

The Master smiles so softly she could melt - she surreptitiously checks that she isn't  _ actually _ melting - and presses their foreheads together. "And I love you."

Her hearts still speed up hearing him say it, even now. With a gentle touch to his face, trailing her fingers down, she stays like that for a moment; heads together, arms and tentacles and  _ selves _ wrapped around each other. Existing, for an eternal second, outside of time and in each other's arms.

Eventually, though, she breaks the quiet as something occurs to her. "You said you were getting something to surprise me with. What is it?"

The Doctor is well aware that she probably sounds overeager, but she can't help her curiosity.

"You do understand the point of a surprise is to not know what it is, right?" the Master laughs. "You'll find out eventually."

Her eyes narrow suspiciously, and she manifests a couple extra ones just to get the point across. A wave of fondness hits her from his mind, and she decides that whatever the surprise is, it can wait until after she's kissed him again. After all, they've got exactly as long as they want.


End file.
